566 MEDIAEVAL HISTORY. [PART V. 



work in defence of the cosmography of the Pentateuch 

 from the errors of the Ptolemaic astronomy. 1 He died in 

 the year 550, before his task was completed, and one of 

 the last portions of it on which he was employed was an 

 account of Taprobane, taken down from the reports of 

 Sopater, a Greek trader whom he had met at Adule in 

 Ethiopia, when on his return from Ceylon. 



Sopater, in the course of business as a merchant, sailed 

 from Adule in the same ship with a Persian bound for 

 Ceylon, and on his arrival he and his fellow-traveller were 

 presented by the officers of the port to the king, who was 

 probably Kumara Das, the friend and patron of the poet 

 Kalidas. 2 The king received them with courtesy, and 

 Cosmas recounts how in the course of the interview 

 Sopater succeeded in convincing the Singhalese monarch 

 of the greater power of Eome as compared with that of 

 Persia, by exhibiting the large and highly finished gold 

 coin of the Eonian Emperor in contrast with the small and 

 inelegant silver money of the Shah. . This story would, 

 however, appear to be traditional, as Pliny relates a 

 somewhat similar anecdote of the ambassadors from 

 Ceylon in the reign of Claudius, and of the profound 

 respect excited in their minds by the sight of the Eoman 

 denarii. 



As Sopater was the first traveller who described 

 Ceylon from personal knowledge, I shah 1 give his account 

 of the island in the words of Cosmas, which have not 

 before been presented in an English translation. "It 

 is," he says, " a great island of the ocean lying in the 



piTTirti tic? 



Christianorum Opinio de Mundo. 

 This curious book has been printed 

 entire by Montfaucon from a MS. in 

 the Vatican Coll. Patr., vol. ii. p. 

 333. Paris, 1706 A.D. There is 

 only one other MS. known, which 

 was formerly in Florence; and from it 

 THEVENOT had previously extracted 

 and published the portion relating to 

 India in his Relation des Div. Voy,, 

 vol. i. Paris, 1576 A.D. 



2 Cosmas wrote between A.D. 545 



and 550 ; and the voyage of Sopater 

 to Ceylon had been made thirty years 

 before. Kumara Das reigned from 

 A.D. 515 to A.D. 524. Vincent has 

 noted the fact that in his interview 

 with the Greek he addressed him by 

 the epithet of Roomi, " av 'Pw/xfi>," 

 which is the term that has been ap- 

 plied from time immemorial in India 

 to the powers who have been succes- 

 sively in possession of Constantinople, 

 whether Roman, Christian, or Ma- 

 hommedan. Vol. ii. p. 511., &c. 



